


carry it with you

by HorribleThing



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2014-03-24
Packaged: 2018-01-16 19:51:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1359727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HorribleThing/pseuds/HorribleThing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This feels like this is the type of space where if she puts her hand on the door and starts to push, something will stop her and ask if she needs to save her game. There's a danger to it, and a finality. But Sburb doesn't offer those types of safeties. Sburb isn't that kind.</p><p>[Jade meets her Denizen.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	carry it with you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/gifts).



The cliff where Jade last saw Echidna is empty now. It must have happened towards the end of the frog catching loops, and she feels a little silly for not having noticed something so big moving. Grandpa would be so angry with her for not noticing. A marksman should always be alert! Even Dave told her, because Davesprite told him (and Dave is so lucky so have a self sprite that isn't a whiny failure and will actually get stuff done), that she should be careful and avoid her Denizen. That the Denizens were dangerous. But then he had rambled for five minutes about end bosses and some videogame turned into a move that she had never seen, and how Jean-Claude Van Damme's performance could have only been improved if the American flag on his oiled up bicep was four times as big.

Dave didn't bring up the Denizens again, and so it had slipped out of her mind. She had frogs to take care of and genetic sequencing to perfect, and Dave's jokes had been so funny. And she was with a person, a real awake person, for the first time in years and years. It had made her so happy, even if he wouldn't let her hold his hand.

But Dave is dead now. Or at least the Dave that was with her is. And he hasn't talked to her since, not even to let her know that he's okay. So it's not like he's going to stop her!

There's a long trail through the melting snow on the cliff, wide like she thinks a snow plow must be and she follows it, with Jack Noir trailing behind her. He idly slashes at the snow with his sword, so he must hate it, like he hates everything. Like he hates everything except for her. Jack Noir follows her like the angriest puppy, wild and untrained. But Jade is mostly just glad that he doesn't get in the way as she walks downhill, down towards earth where the snow is more melted and strange flowers are blooming. The tracks wind down and down through the entrance of Echidna's palace, going deep into her planet.

Maybe Echidna missed her home. Maybe she's just tired of being cold.

The palace is beautiful, and more comforting than Jade thinks it's supposed to be, even though she gets more and more nervous as she progresses through it. But it reminds her of the frog temple, like it's part of her island that she never got to see, and a wave of homesickness creeps up along her anxiety. Jade wishes that Rose could be there to theorize about the art history and culture that the consorts here must have or that John could be there to tell her what movies this place reminds him of or Dave could be there to ramble about something, anything, and distract her. Instead, Jack Noir stomps on another frog and she has to yell at him to cut it out. Her voice echoes through the halls, and he stops snarling, hackles no longer raised.

He destroys statues when he thinks she isn't looking, though.

Eventually she reaches a door. It's large and impressive and carved so beautifully Jade just wants to examine it, but she doesn't have time. There are things that she needs to do. This feels like this is the type of space where if she puts her hand on the door and starts to push, something will stop her and ask if she needs to save her game. There's a danger to it, and a finality. But Sburb doesn't offer those types of safeties. Sburb isn't that kind.

Grandpa would have told her to get a bigger gun. To get lots of big guns. To go in armed to the teeth firing away, and never show any weakness.

Kanaya tells her that she doesn't need to be afraid. That she can choose to not fight and choose to be safe. And Kanaya has been so nice to her, so kind and helpful these past few weeks of frog hunting. They have so much in common! And when they've met in the dream bubbles her face seemed so gentle. Or as gentle as a pretty glowing alien vampire from a violent murder-culture with moods analogous but not identical to human emotion can be. But it's so hard to trust the trolls. Karkat is only now finally being “nice” to her after years of bullying, bullying that started when she was so young and barely had anyone to interact with.

Back when they were collecting frogs, Dave told her what happened in the doomed timeline. Not the details, but she knows. She doesn't have her dreamself left. There's no backup now.

She doesn't want to make another dead Dave.  She's cried herself sick over one already.

Kanaya says she doesn't need to be afraid. And more than anything, Jade wants that to be true.

The hairs on Jade's arms raise and her skin feels all prickly and her heart is beating so hard she feels sick. But she puts her gun away and goes through the door.

 

  

“ _Hello My Witch, My Child._ ”

 

They aren't words, it's not a language she knows, but somehow the sounds have meaning anyway. Like it's being processed instantly through her brain, without going through her ears first. Or like she's recalling a memory she didn't know she had.

“ _I was waiting for you to come and see Me._ ”

Echidna is terrifying in a way that's cold and overwhelming and beautiful, and Jade wonders if Echidna should have been Rose's Denizen instead. Echidna suits Rose better, imposing and icy. Pretty in a way that Jade doesn't ever think she'll ever be. But she doesn't have time to dwell on it because Jack Noir is snarling, darting forward with his sword raised. It takes all the speed and strength she has in her to grab him and make him stop. There are lots of hissed whispers of “Sit!” and “Stay!” and “Don't you do that again you bad bad dog! You are in so much trouble!”

“ _That is not one of my Children,_ ” Echidna says, and it registers as disdain.

Jack Noir snarls at the sound of Echidna's voice, but stays put. And Jade is so relieved. She doesn't want him to get them both killed because he's a big angry dummy!

“I'm sorry,” Jade says, her voice shaking a little.  (Stupid!) “He just followed me here. And I tried to get him to leave me alone but he's kind of a pain.”

“ _So you have your own monster, then._ ”

“I... guess?” She doesn't know what it means, and doesn't have time to ask before Echidna continues.

“ _So why has My Child finally come to see her Mother?_ ”

“I was told that you could help me find the frog I need.” The words sound silly and childish as soon as she says them, and Jade has to remind herself that frogs are important here and she is on a Quest. She is not as small as she feels.

“ _There are two paths that you can take now, My Child. You may not not like the one you will have to choose to reach what you seek._ ”

“What are they?”

“ _You can exist peacefully with your friends and loved ones._ ”

“Or?”

“ _You can find the last frog and make a new world._ ”

Jade wants to be curled up on a couch with John and Rose and Dave, and to hear the voices of their Guardians softly in the other room. She wants to watch something stupid and mindless with them and laugh and try junk food for the first time. (She's never had pizza or Doritos or the snack cakes that John's dad thinks are evil! She's never had a single nacho in her life!) She wants her friends to hug her and to be able to hug Bec, to bury her face in his soft fur that smells like lightning and home and tell him what a good dog he is.

But she can't have those things, at least not right now. It wouldn't be fair.

It wouldn't be fair to her friends who wouldn't get to make the choice and to a whole world full of people that could exist if she lets them.

“What do I have to do to get the last frog?” 

“ _You must promise to do something for Me. You must do something for all of the Denizens_.”

“What is it?”

“ _Our worlds are ending, but We do not want them to end. So you must take Us with you. You must bring Us to the new universe you create when this one is torn apart. Do you know how you will accomplish this, My Child?_ ”

“No,” Jade says, determined and scared at the same time. “But I'll do it anyway.” And Jade thinks that when she says it, her Denizen smiles.

Echidna speaks, and Jade remembers.

 

_(wet sand between her toes feels funny under the night sky and the stars are so bright and pretty she hates her bed time she wants to look at them and she goes outside sometimes anyway but there's a frog! a froggie! and grandpa never lets animals except bec get close to her but it's just so cute, the cutest thing. it glows just like a star and its eyes flash through lots of colors and she loves every single one. so she picks it up and it is so cute she just wants to hug it to her! but then it flashes bright green and just like that it's gone. dead.)_

 

“ _You know where the frog is._ ” It's not a question.

“Yes,” Jade tells her, able to see that moment with the frog so perfectly in her mind. 

“ _You will complete the task I have given to you._ ” That's not a question, either.

“Yes,” Jade says. And she means it.

 

 

She doesn't know how she'll do it yet, but she knows that she will. It's not a confidence thing. Jade doesn't feel bold like she did when she used to sneak around Grandpa and Bec, bold like she did when she shouted down aliens or climbed to the highest branches of trees to catch frogs in an evening dress because she wanted to show off for a boy that she had never seen before.

She just knows. It's deep and constant and a part of her. And that's the scary part, she thinks. Scarier than meeting Echidna and scarier than throwing herself in front of a meteor and losing half of her being in the process. After years of planning and arranging and mapping her actions with colored bands on her fingers, knowing months, years in advance what would happen and why... simple faith is terrifying. But she believes anyway. Maybe this was how Dave felt when he stopped thinking about his time loops and just started making them, just started doing what felt right. Maybe this is what it feels like to accept her role in Sburb and let it lead her.

Deep down she is terrified of what will happen, but she pushes that part of herself down where it can't touch her actions. She pushes it down to the part of her brain (but it hurts more in her chest) where she is sad about losing Bec forever and angry with herself and shaken and mad about Dave using her like that, using her to die. She pushes it down and locks it away, because she has no use for those feelings right now. She can hurt later.  She has to move forward now.

Jade doesn't know how she will take the Denizens with her, but she will. She will tear apart worlds, if that's what it takes. If she has to she will carry them in her blood, in the marrow of her bones.  She will bring them with her and build a new universe where she can live happily with all of her friends and loved ones

She can't afford not to.

 


End file.
